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HP Allegedly Time Bombs Unofficial Ink Cartridges from Working in Its Printers

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Re: HP Allegedly Time Bombs Unofficial Ink Cartridges from Working in Its Printers

#211

Post by Hydraulix989 »

noonespecial wrote: post #129

The best way to make a difference against this nastyness realistically available to us is probably the "one star review". And when you do, resist writing 10 paragraphs about all the times HP has ever wronged you or a long story about how much you needed the printout when it refused to print. One star, one sentence. "Expires full inks after only x months forcing you to buy new ones when you don't need them." I know fo…

I generally go for the three star review. It suggests I'm fair, and not some crazy, raving lunatic.

Re: HP Allegedly Time Bombs Unofficial Ink Cartridges from Working in Its Printers

#212

Post by rdiddly »

userbinator wrote: post #139
yyhhsj0521 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need custom ROMs for printers. Like we have OpenWRT for routers.

One thing I've wondered about is why there seem to be various "hacking scenes" for other electronics like routers, game consoles, mobiles, and now even some 3D printers, but seemingly nothing for regular 2D printers; despite the fact that the hardware costs are extremely low. Given all the anti-user security those other devices have yet are bypassed by such skilled hackers, a printer may be absolutely trivial in comp…

It's probably because there's no single printer model that seems worth the effort. The printer landscape is basically hundreds of shitty cheap models. New ones all the time. A moving target. The more I think about it, it's probably intentional.

Re: HP Allegedly Time Bombs Unofficial Ink Cartridges from Working in Its Printers

#213

Post by themartorana »

wfo wrote: post #166
rayiner wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On principle I hate the idea of encouraging people to submit reviews for products that they haven't purchased. It's a crime worse than time-bombing generic printer cartridges and makes online reviews basically worthless. I don't give a shit about your moral stand against HP. Give me an honest review of a product you own or don't say anything.

I absolutely agree. But nearly half of Amazon reviews these days are paid advertisements by the seller in my experience. And while I think you should never write a review for a product you've never used, if you've: 1. Supported or used one at work 2. Had to make purchasing decisions at work, done research, and chosen a competing product 3. Helped a friend or family member with one Then go right ahead.

It really does feel like at least half. I went to buy an iPhone 7 case and they all had 50+ 4.5 star reviews... before the iPhone 7 had shipped. I filtered one case with 40+ reviews to "Verified Purchases" only, and only a single review was left.

In some cases it feels like 90%.

Re: HP Allegedly Time Bombs Unofficial Ink Cartridges from Working in Its Printers

#215

Post by arnoooooo »

m3adow wrote: post #16
Animats wrote: post #7

There's the Epson Eco-Tank series. Ink is in four bottles at the side of the machine, good for about 4000-6000 pages. Refill with Epson ink bottles or (a bit more messily) from bulk ink. The printer costs about $279. You do have to clean the print heads occasionally. That's the price of long life print heads.

How is the Linux support for Epson printers? The big thing for HP is their good support for Linux.

The Laserjet I have is a real pain to get working under Linux. It also looses its firmware every time it is unplugged.

Re: HP Allegedly Time Bombs Unofficial Ink Cartridges from Working in Its Printers

#216

Post by PieterH »

azarias wrote: post #26

Can confirm, this happened to our HP 6830 printer on September 13. Extremely annoyed because we only bought this printer in June, and was working fine with a replacement ink. I was actually researching legal precedents to this, and learned that Lexmark has been fighting something like this in court for over a decade[1]. [1] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160214/16294133605/after...

Yeah, patent law, recourse of the scoundrels.

Re: HP Allegedly Time Bombs Unofficial Ink Cartridges from Working in Its Printers

#217

Post by PieterH »

dogma1138 wrote: post #203
ythl wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why my HP printer only has a black cartridge. The socket for the color cartridge is empty.

Yeah the problem is that some of them don't allow you to do this anymore. Overall I've started to buy B&W only laser printers and I buy a new printer when the toner runs out. You can find Samsung entry level laser printers with a toner good for 300-500 pages on Amazon for about 30£ on sale that's cheaper than buying a toner. 1st world problems for sure but this is beyond stupid.

The replacement toner is worth buying too, lasts some thousands of pages. I love my cheap Samsung lasers.

Re: HP Allegedly Time Bombs Unofficial Ink Cartridges from Working in Its Printers

#218

Post by dogma1138 »

PieterH wrote: post #217
dogma1138 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the problem is that some of them don't allow you to do this anymore. Overall I've started to buy B&W only laser printers and I buy a new printer when the toner runs out. You can find Samsung entry level laser printers with a toner good for 300-500 pages on Amazon for about 30£ on sale that's cheaper than buying a toner. 1st world problems for sure but this is beyond stupid.

The replacement toner is worth buying too, lasts some thousands of pages. I love my cheap Samsung lasers.

I bought it once it but it costs about 50-60 GBP (i had printers for as low as 17 GBP on sale) and it only doubles the page count if you use it all the time, once you let the tones sit they seem to degrade quite quickly for some reason.

Re: HP Allegedly Time Bombs Unofficial Ink Cartridges from Working in Its Printers

#219

Post by PieterH »

vlehto wrote: post #51
woliveirajr wrote: post #21

Laser OKI color printer isn't different. Each toner (CMYK) has a life based on printed pages and stop working even if there's toner inside. No third part supplier, because the printer won't recognize it. And it's useless torefill it if you don't change some chip in each toner. And then the fusor will also stop after some number of pages, no matter if the quality was still good. To replace it you spend more than you p…

Life based on printed pages would be OK. If you actually print the number pages you promise, I can compare the total costs of cartridges and printers. But I think some models also have timer. After 6 months or year, the printer starts to complain that the ink has "dried up". To prohibit you from saving up that unicorn blood by printing less. By banned list is HP, Canon and I'm very cautious about Samsung.

Lexmark are also crooks. Samsung has been good (cheap lasers) but being bought by HP.

Re: HP Allegedly Time Bombs Unofficial Ink Cartridges from Working in Its Printers

#220

Post by ryandrake »

bArray wrote: post #59

I think this calls for a cheap open source printer to be made. Nothing complex is needed initially, just black and white with low running costs. In reality, any liquid that stains the paper of a given consistency should be fine. It shouldn't be costing this much to replace ink.

I've had the same LaserJet 4000N for close to 20 years. These things were built in the late '90s (pre-shenanigans) and last. Toner changes are cheap and infrequent. Find one on eBay.
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